[Coco] Re: [Color Computer] Help for transfering Coco disk to PC

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 25 March 2005 07:50, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Friday 25 March 2005 01:18, Sylvain De Chantal wrote:
>>>Hi Folks,
>>>
>>>I've tried to transfer Coco disks (i have about 130) to my PC (AMD
>>>Athlon, Win XP) after installing a TEAC FD-55 GFR floppy drive (a
>>>1.2meg high density) and using the Coco emulator of Jeff Vavasour
>>>(Version 1-15). I did configure the BIOS for the floppy (B: 5½
>>>1.2MEG) and configuring the emulator to read the B: floppy, but i
>>>still can't read anything.
>>>
>>>I've cataloged about 90 disks on my Coco and they work fine. So is
>>>there another way to transfer Coco disk to a PC ? Oh and i don't
>>>have a modem in my PC since i'm using a high-speed modem connected
>>>to the USB port.
>>
>> Coco's disks are not going to be readable in a 1.2 meg drive, the
>> spindle speed is wrong for starters.  The heads are too narrow for
>> problem B, and problem C is the data rate.
>
>Not tried it with COCO disks yet, but will do at some point ion the
>future, but I have successfully read and written Daragon Disk images
>using both 1.2M and 1.44M drives. But his was however under linux
> using custom disk parameters.

Yes, its considerably more versatile than any M$ version.

>> Coco disks are only 35 track SS disks unless you were using os9,
>> in which case the 720k drives were usable.  The 1.2 meg format
>> uses a 500kilobaud data rate, spinning at 360 rpm.  The Coco's
>> used a 250kilobaud data rate, with the disk spinning at 300 rpm.
>
>The disks I read where standard 40 track 18x256 byte sectors. IIRC
> 1.2M drives will also read/write PC 360K floppies which are
> 250Kbaud 300rpm IIRC.

If the proper software switches are thrown.  I don't believe windows, 
any version, can do that.

>> You may be able to jumper that drive for 300 rpm, and the right
>> switches in the driver may be able to slow the data rate down, but
>> then can it double step that 96 tpi drive to emulate a 48 tpi
>> drive?
>>
>> Lots of problems and you would be far better off to try to find an
>> old 360k drive that would be far less work to make it work.
>
>If you use Linux on the PC this can all be handled by fdparm, which
> can set
>the transfer rate, double step etc, realy usefull for reading alien
> disk formats. I can provide details if people want.

Thanks, I couldn't remember the name. :-)  Blame it on alzheimers 
maybe?

>I do know however that Windows 2000 and Windows XP will not read 256
>byte sectors as used by the CoCo/Dragon, I have managed to get XP
> (with the help of some code) to read sectors off a Sincair QL disk
> but that is also 512 byte sectors like a PC disk.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>Phill.
>
>
>
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>
>
>

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
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Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.


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